Although he’ll likely make the Chase for the Sprint Cup based upon his win earlier this season at Martinsville, to say this has been a good first half-season for Kurt Busch may be a bit of a stretch.

With Saturday’s Coke Zero 400 marking the halfway point of the 2014 Sprint Cup season, the elder Busch brother has struggled more than succeeded in the first 17 races of his tenure at Stewart Haas Racing:

* Even with the Martinsville win, he has only two other top-five finishes and no other top-10 showings.

* His average start is decent (13.5), but his average finish (22.2) is mediocre at best.

* Busch has finished outside the top-20 in 10 of those first 17 races.

* Perhaps the most disappointing part of the season is his ranking: he’s been 26th in the standings for the past three weeks. Busch is the lowest-ranked driver who has at least one win and is all but qualified for the Chase. The next lowest ranked is Denny Hamlin (17th).

But crew chief Daniel Knost is optimistic that things can change around for Busch and the No. 41 team in the second half of the season.

“Definitely, our first goal is to be more consistent,” Knost said in a team media release. “Consistency is really important over the long haul in racing. I think we need to continue to improve our pure speed. I think we’ve made significant gains in that area, but there is still more room to improve.

“We certainly want to win a few more races. We want to develop consistency and develop a very pragmatic approach by the time we hit the Chase so we aren’t doing as much guesswork.”

This is Knost’s first season as a Sprint Cup crew chief. And while he’s essentially been learning on the job, he sees signs of improvement for Busch and the No. 41 team, and is also at the point where some recent finishes could have been better in his mind.

“Honestly, I think in two of our last three races where we scored a top-15 finish, we had the potential to be significantly better than that so, to me, the execution has got to be better,” Knost said. “You have to continue to evolve in this sport and anyone who stays stagnant is going to continue to fall behind.

“What was a good car last year is not a good car this year. What was a good car at the beginning of this year is not as good of a car now. What is a race-winning car at this point won’t be by the end of the year, so you need to continue to evolve as far as cars continue to get better.”

Knost’s comfort level increases with each race, and now that the series is revisiting tracks for the second time this season, Knost has a more of a baseline to work with.

“I would say I’m more comfortable,” Knost said. “At this point, I have more of an expectation for the way that practices lay out and how the week lays out. I’m more comfortable with making decisions. As far as Daytona goes, there is a lot that’s out of your control. I guess I knew that going in, but now I really know that. From that perspective, I guess I would say that I just have more of an idea in terms of expectations.”

Knost and Busch have developed a good rapport and communication. Unfortunately, five DNFs (three crashes, two engine issues) have put the team behind.

“I’ve definitely learned that people respond to things differently,” Knost said. “Whether it’s communication, circumstances or results, everyone responds to those things differently. One of the key things to get right as a team leader is to figure out how to work with all of these different people and try to find a way to get the best out of each one of them when they don’t react the same to certain things. That’s been a big learning curve.

“Technically, there are all sorts of little details that, each time you come out of a test, practice or race, you look back at the things you did well and the things you missed. You hope you don’t miss those things multiple times. I feel like there have been plenty of things I would do differently if given another opportunity. I think there are some things I’ve done well and would do again if given the opportunity but, in general, you just see a lot of the little details someone with more experience might take for granted. Those are the things that become second nature with experience but, when you haven’t done it before, you have to actively think about it.”

Knost is being kind. What he means is that he is trying to find a way to deal with Kurt’s childish and uncivil behavior when things don’t go the way Kurt thinks they should. Good luck with that. It’s a career opportunity.